I once did a bike ride that started northwest of Denver and headed east into the high Plains. We started at 3 a.m. An hour or so into the ride, we crossed under the flight path into Denver's airport, in the middle of the farms and ranches that stretch from the city pretty much clear across to Kansas City. I rode along in the dark, watching the progression of the planes approaching from the north, each with landing lights on, each seeming to move so slowly they appeared suspended in the predawn sky, each silent until they were almost overhead, but even then the roar of the jet engines seemed muffled by the dark and the prairie.

You get another version of the same experience landing here: a long approach with the farms and ranches interrupted by just a few new developments flung out from the city. We approached from the north, the afternoon sun shadowing us on the fields below, right up to the edge of the runway.